I think it's because in America you always get the sense that if you fail, you can just pack up your things and go somewhere else and try again. But in England, it's so geographically small that if somebody succeeds here, it reduces your chances of succeeding.

Oh, I could spend my life having this conversation - look - please try to understand before one of us dies

And now for something completely different...

Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.

I think the hard thing for young comedians is that the majority of the young people in the audience out there don't have the wide range of references.

That's a lovely experience when you make an audience laugh. Then the nerves go away for a bit. And sometimes you do things then that you've never done before that are really funny.

When I was in school, I was beaten every 30 minutes. It never did me any harm except for some psychological mal-adjustments and blurred vision.